Peter wrote:
a renter doing it gets blocked by the school/club
There is an unfortunate conservatism in many clubs. At the annual general meeting of the Royal Swedish Aeroclub (national organisation of aeroclubs in Sweden) last year, the major light GA insurance company gave a presentation of their view of the new flight sharing rules. They made it quite clear that flight sharing — also on Wingly etc. — was entirely within the t&c of the insurance policies. However many club representatives spontaneously called out that “never in our club” etc.
The rules for flight sharing and introductory flights and flight sharing website is a great opportunity— not primarily to reduce costs in my opinion — but to improve public perception of light GA which is crucial for our future. It’s a shame that many people with influence can’t see anything in this other than “morally illegal” AOC.
Peter wrote:
I have been reading some stuff on Wingly in the UK
Peter wrote:
It appears that a syndicate member doing this gets booted out of the syndicate, and a renter doing it gets blocked by the school/club
It doesn’t become clear if you’ve read some anecdotes of specific cases or a view that generally, syndicates and clubs (in the UK?) do not support flight sharing.
My anecdotal evidence from Germany doesn’t support that view. There is a vivid mix of pilots on Wingly actively sharing flights – owners and renters alike. Our club has an integrated interface between the aircraft reservation system and Wingly, so you can automatically have your flight posted. I don’t think that qualifies as “discreetly on the side” – and there is no reason for that, either.
Peter wrote:
But I am sure most owners of nice planes (with €1000 headsets, etc) will not want to take up strangers
Can’t tell, but if I were an owner of such a plane, surely my enthusiasm for flight and the willingness to share it would not change? It’s not only about money, after all…
Airborne_Again wrote:
However many club representatives spontaneously called out that “never in our club”Our club’s position is: if it’s ok with the EASA and the insurance, it’s ok with us.
I am involved in a discussion on this subject in France. There are several reasons why clubs are opposed to cost-sharing platforms:
Aviathor wrote:
It competes with discovery flights on which clubs make a benefit (not stated in such terms though)
Club leaders lose power over club members. For discovery flights the club president must approve the pilots allowed to conduct such flights among the population that satisfies experience requirement. Only members that lick the presidents boots get approved. If pilots can recruit passengers from the Internet, the prospect of being allowed to perform discovery flights will be less attractive as a carrot, and the president’s boots won’t be as shiny
Many claim it goes against “club spirit”
Many claim that there is a legal risk to allow cost-sharing through the cost-sharing platforms as opposed to recruiting passengers among friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues.
Many claim that the club exempt from VAT may lose the VAT exemption and has to pay back-taxes.
Many claim it is disguised air taxi that requires an AOC (clearly bogus) – but let’s face it, some of that is clearly going on. On the other hand it has always been going on, the difference being now that there is a higher level of transparency on the cost-sharing platforms although a lot more goes on behind the scenes.
Wow. That’s… horrible!
It makes me wonder, UK and France are pretty large countries with a pretty decent pilot population. What in the world keeps people from building a “nice” aeroclub? It is possible in other countries. Why, if this is really the general picture that you guys are painting there, would it be so hard? I can’t imagine that anyone, especially the younger folks, are happy in that sort of environment? Why not quit and start something decent without boot licking? I know it’s a metaphor, but it sounds disgusting nonetheless, to pursue one’s hobby in such an environment?
The general rule is that when there is a lot of money splashing around, everybody is happy and relaxed. When the money gets tight, people start biting bits off each other. You see this in all communities; human and animal. You see it under communism… everybody is under pressure there and all kinds of unpleasant things go on.
When one flies to different airports (and I have flown to well over 150 airports) one sees different aeroclubs. Some are obviously rich and everything is nice and clean. Others are obviously poor and the runway is covered in rocks and nobody wants to buy a broom (€10) because whoever pays for the broom will be subsidising the others. There are also some decrepit ones which are friendly and relaxed, too, but this is not usual. I have just heard, from a pilot who has lived and flown in France for some decades, very involved in the scene there, that aeroclubs are pretty quiet compared to a decade ago. No obvious reason for it… just a big drop in activity. Just like in the UK. And that would be expected to result in some negative changes, as those who have climbed to the top of the food chain in volunteer organisations are trying to assert and protect their authority. Lord of the Flies? More here. And volunteer organisations have always suffered from the “big character” problem – it is a huge challenge, often seen in GA organisations too, everywhere. All the well known organisations have big characters who wreak as much havoc as they do good work.
A flying community which is “run” by a President is vulnerable to this kind of thing, because he is very powerful. Most are renters (de facto) so have to lick his boots. The instructors working there have to lick his boots even more. Many previous (old) posts on that topic here… If OTOH the community was mostly made up of owners, he would have no power at all – other than screw people over hangarage. But with mostly owners you would not have a social scene… they turn up, fly, come back, go home. It is just like sailing versus windsurfing.
It comes down to airfield politics, as usual, as everywhere.
I suspect, Patrick, that your club is in an affluent area, has lots of active members (spending €€€) and happens to be well managed. Sure it is possible.
I think these platforms do better job in promoting GA to general public than the old style club structure (which is ironically in decline probably due to cheap and quick fun brought by internet and other technologies, so not bad if wingly & co “kick the GA”).
Risk/legality sides, let’s leave that to insurances/lawmakers they will know what to do when this spreads to public as data comes in, I can speculate or argue as I like on it without some facts.
So this leave us with politics and attitude, one day a visited a non equity syndicate and the guy in charge explicitly mentioned “no online flight share”, while online flight share was not on my plans, I asked why? insurance? with CPL? online flight for free? I did not get reasonable answers and it was my reason to walk away from that group…
The only thing I don’t like about these platforms is they carry some mis-information regarding the use of GA, it’s cost and associated risks: as “mass customer” the first thing you look is a single price but later you discover some other factors to consider and “cheap GA” is not necessarily a good thing on top of the legacy structure, but as you bring more people money will flow but probably not to the same hands as today which is probably a good thing?
Ps: I am probably biased to online sharing as I am connected to the founders of one platform and belong to the Y generation
My impression from reading here for several years about the experience people have of clubs in different countries, my impression is that clubs in e.g. Germany and Scandinavia are completely different creatures compared to those in the UK and France (which also seem quite different),
Why that is so would be interesting to understand… Regarding Scandinavia I could guess it is because of a strong tradition in Scandinavia since the 19th century of people self-organising in non-profit organisations — or “movements”. It is said that Swedish society was built by the temperance movement, the worker’s movement and the independent churches (distinct from the Church of Sweden).
Indeed – one previous discussion was here.
However, there could be factors which could produce a negative correlation between an organisation being “friendly” and the organisation supporting advertised flights in the planes people rent from it.
Imagine a very friendly cosy aeroclub where everybody does the same short legs 50-100nm down the road. This yields good aircraft utilisation because the aircraft is always back later the same day, and the short legs mean that wx is rarely a problem because any little gap in bad wx will be flyable. The finances will accordingly be healthy, and everybody will be happy. Safety will be good because most of the flights are to the same old places. The sort of club where everybody knows everybody else well… really really well. Sounds familiar? 
But now imagine one member is picking up advertised flight requests. He’s going to be doing
Now think of some organisations which you have known and which meet the above description and ask yourself how many of the members could suddenly do long trips safely.
You can perhaps see why the President will be worried!
Peter wrote:
You can perhaps see why the President will be worried!
Being the president of a reasonably large aeroclub myself, I am not at all worried. If and when this becomes a problem, then we will figure out how to deal with it. At the present time I believe that anything that will encourage members to make more than “burger runs” is a good thing
